July 07, 2005

My Commodore 64 Secret Life

I grew up with a Commodore 64 as my best friend. The C64 offered a new world to escape to from the banality of 5th grade. This is a story I always tell and people respond with a blank stare eventually uttering, "What was the point? That's pretty stupid." So you just shouldn't bother reading this.

When I was ten I acquired a 300 baud modem. Services like Quantum Link (later to become AOL), which were primitive chatroom networks, soon lost appeal after I was repeatedly kicked off for excessive cursing. I started logging on to local BBSs (bulletin board systems) where a SysOp (one lonely guy) set up his computer to receive other users one at a time. The BBS’s featured message boards and download/upload areas. I was still involved in the real world of life, not totally ensconced in the world of computers, but I was looking for a way out, something new that would let me escape the constant ridicule of being fat and weird. Unfortunately these local BBSs were not the answer because they were usually run by old geezer hobbyists and most of the BBS members were from his close circle of friends. On the message boards they usually talked about RUSH.

I was always scouring the cheapo software bins where budget companies like Mastertronic would sell their games for $10 a piece. There was something enticing about these games in that they were obscure and were the effort of a couple people rather than a whole design team. Even if the game was absolute crap, it was a more personal and interesting experience than dropping $40 on a fancy multi-disc game from Electronic Arts. Like my record hoarding and MP3 collecting these days, it was like finding a treasure in a garbage dump.

Free cracked games were easy to come by with a modem. With a snail-slow 300 baud modem, it usually took about two hours to download 160 blocks…but the magical world that opened up by acquiring cracked games was more than worth it…and it wasn’t about the games.

Every cracker put intros on their warez. An intro was a little graphic demo with a logo, some SID music, and a scrolling message greeting other cracking groups and generally boasting how their group is the best. These intros were very mysterious and very iconic. Most of these kids were anywhere from 13-18, but they really knew how to make a powerful bold statement utilizing the limits of a rudimentary computer.

In addition to the mystery of intros, most of the games were from Europe since the Commodore was much more popular over there. A European cracking group would put their intro on their crack, send it over to the states and the American group would NTSC fix the PAL version and slap their intro on it. So not only was I getting this kinda exotic game, this obscure little treasure from across the ocean, I was getting two original pieces of art. I soon took more delight in looking at the intros rather than playing the shitty little games (and in some cases, the intro coding, grafix and music was far superior than the game).

The local BBSs rarely supported cracked games and the ELITE BBSs (it was a very hierarchal social group), which had multiple disk drives of software to download, generally didn’t allow 300 baud users. I eventually saved up 50 dollars and soon upgraded to a used 1200 baud modem. I now had my foot in the door.

My phone bill was running up from calling BBSs. My mother screamed at me every time the phone bill came in. I was mostly calling in-state long-distance but most of the ELITE BBSs were out of state. In order to bypass a huge phone bill, I had to acquire codez. These were calling cards and special phone company extensions like the ubiquitous 950-0488s. There were a fresh crop of codez on the BBSs every couple days as most became inactive pretty quickly. I never hacked codez and didn’t have any elite hacker friends, so it was a bit hard to get a fresh source. I occasionally would use a code that had been working for weeks, knowing that it might be a potential trap. I was willing to take the chance rather than having to deal with my mother.

The few friends I had slowly started to berate me for spending so much time on the computer. They thus labeled me “Faggot” as well as “Butt-Jam”. Eventually I was exiled from the group and my only remaining friend was the computer. But my status in the Commodore 64 underground was rising! I had changed my handle to “Opus X” to “Death Merchant” and I was a member of some of the most elite BBSs in America. I was no longer a lamer.

I was soon accepted into a demo group named “Venom”. Demos were a movement that grew out of intros, where the programmer wanted to show off his skills in a bigger way. This was my grand achievement since there were maybe five demo groups in America at the time and Venom was one of the best. I was the grafix guy, which meant I would spend hours making silly little pixilated Venom logos and send them off to one of the ML programmers to incorporate into the production. In school I would sketch out ideas for Venom logos and I would lose hours of sleep lying in my bed concocting new concepts for logos and demos.

I became very good friends with the other Venom members strictly through the telephone. I lived in Jersey and most of them lived in California. We would talk for hours about ideas for new demos, scene gossip and the imaginary girlfriend I had. I had no friends at school but I had a whole other world at home through the telephone, modem and computer. The California guys would sometimes have demo parties where they would hang out and program…I was always on the phone with them, wishing I could be there.

There was another Jersey guy in Venom who lived five miles away. We were close, but I never met him in person. He was in and out of mental institutions, sometimes coming home to his grandmother’s house for the weekend only to shut himself in and furiously program a demo. Our friendship outlasted our computer days, but I did not see him until five years later. On my first visit he hid in the dark and constantly held his hand over his face. He was very self-conscious and didn’t let me get closer than ten feet of him. He eventually started dating a friend of mine…I don’t think she ever saw his face either.

Through this subculture I learned a lot for a 13 year old. While other kids were sticking firecrackers in frogs’ mouths, I was on conference calls with 10 people from across the continent and across the world, I was making art that many people saw and I broke the law without anyone suspecting or finding out.

Around 1990, the phone companies grew more sophisticated in their tracking techniques and more busts were being made- thus the codez started to run low. I was down to using a group of 1-800 codez that had been active for months. Everyone knew it had to be a trap…but I had no other choice. If the codez dried up, my only life, which I worked hard to develop, was gone. I eventually befriended a hacker who gave me fresh codez but who also laid a bomb on me…

He had broken into the system of the company that owned the 1-800 numbers I was using as backup. He told me that the company has been tracking the users of these codez and I am second on the list of highest grossers and that I was going to be busted very soon. This came as little surprise to me as I was always pretty certain it was a trap.

Eventually the kid at the top of the list was busted- he was an 18 year old SysOp in Milwaukee. Word got around that the cops trashed his place looking for addresses and evidence. They even took a notebook of heavy metal inspired drawings for psychiatric evaluation…or so the tall tale went. I knew I was next in line and was just biding my time.

One day I was faking sick to stay home from school. The phone rang and I knew in my gut who it was…my number was finally up! I was right. I immediately took a 2x4 and smashed the hell out of the computer screaming, “FUCK! FUCK! YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY FUCKING LIFE AWAY FROM ME!” I was a bit of a spazz back then, but my point was that I was ready for the real world again…being outside, lighting fires in the woods, going to the carnival, fucking girls, fucking shit up and smoking cigarettes.

They sent me a bill- I had accumulated $2500 in phone calls…I was shit scared but also a little disappointed that I didn’t have the mythical police raid I heard so much about. I denied everything. I’m not sure if my mother believed me but she backed my story. We pointed out that I’m only 13, how can a 13 year old do this? Impossible! We picked out dates and times where I couldn’t have possibly made a call because I was at school…which I knew was not true. They eventually dropped their pursuit. I think I still have the 100+ page bill somewhere at my mother’s house.

I didn’t touch a computer for another five years. I occasionally would call the old computer pals (legally) but it didn’t last long. Whenever I’m at a bar or party and the conversation comes around to computers, I always ask the inevitable question, “Did you ever have a Commodore 64?” in a feeble attempt to connect with my past and perhaps find someone who I once knew or who can at least relate to it. I have not found anyone yet, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to.

All of my gear and disks were destroyed in a basement flood along with all of my hard work. I always found it odd how I spent so much time on an artform that just magically disappeared with the death of the C64 scene. It gave me an appreciation of the ephemeral. It cultivated a love for the pointless, to make art for arts sake, for the concept…not for the end-result or some grand statement. Ironically, all of my work from when I was 13 still lives on the web to my great surprise…longer than any piece of shit drawing I ever made.

In retrospect though- I was always a lamer. The grafix I made when I was 13 are quite pathetic and I wasn’t smart enough not to get caught. I only lasted 3 years in the cutthroat world of the C64 underground, but I always look back on it with fond nostalgia.

Commodore Demo Scene Related Links:

You can look at the nice pictures, but you might want a Commodore 64 emulator:

The Demo Dungeon - Currently the scene lives on in demos. I’m astounded people still code on the machine and I’m amazed how far they push it. The 15 year old programmers grew up and got an education in graphic design and engineering, so the typical logo, scroll, flying sprite tradition is replaced by crazy morphing filled vectors, interlaced plasma effects, and sid tunes that sound like the sid chip is about to melt...(and unfortunately a lot of drum & bass sounding crap). There are annual contest parties held in Europe where they exhibit their work.

C64 Crack Intros - a database with examples of more than 2000 Commodore 64 crack intros.

Doc Snyder's C64 Crack Intros Redone In Flash - If you don't have the time to putz about with an emulator you can see what the hell I'm talking about with these Flash crack intro versions. Unfortunately the immature silly boasting scroll text has been replaced.

CSDb - The Commodore 64 Scene Database - A scene database with a vast repository of cracks, demos and sceners dating back to early ‘80s. There is a message forum where 35 year old men quibble over 20 year old spats, people look for old friends and the very occasional current scene news is revealed.

Comments

Wow, man. What a trip. you just pretty much told my story, but i was an Apple II guy.

Codez...gotta get fresh codez....

My two closest hacking pals actually did get their homes raided. I knew something was up that day at school, and when I finally got the truth out of them, I frantically called my Mom, and told her to destory all the disks and papers at my desk. She, of course, just threw them in the dumpster behind the house (the cops would never think to look there!).

And so ended my days as a phreaker and warez trader. I always wanted to write a book about the early days, but I really don't recall enough details. I guess this was 1984 or 85. It was right around the time the Mac started making the Apple II obsolete.

Man, this not only takes me back, it brings back feelings of loneliness and despair I haven't experienced in years. I never actually had a C64, so I had to live vicariously through my best friend's warez and codez adventures. He actually attempted to order a new computer using a credit card posted on a BBS. This never panned out, which was probably for the best in retrospect. Now he's in the air force and we have pretty much nothing in common. Man, though, that shit was fucking exciting at the time.

Not only did I spend much of my early childhood studying the architecture of the C64 (the even earlier part of childhood had my attention on large mainframes), but to this day I still revisit the subject, and have found that those geekier than I still publish technically-oriented Commodore 64 newsletters to this day.

I still have my original floppies with my own game intros. I still have my original 110 baud modem, my original break-out box wired up to act as a null modem connector, and early sketches of the first computer programs I wrote back in my single-digit ages. And I still remember certain phreak numbers (real geeks never said "codez" except in a ridiculing way). [*Not that I ever used any.*]

And, yes, that was a much, much more interesting time in the history of personal computing. Now the average computer owner just knows how to point and click. They're missing out!

I spent most of my teenage years hacking out cracks and demos as Mantis, on the fringes of the XS group (before it got big in the Amiga scene iirc). If you ask me, they were fantastic; my favourite trick was getting the floppy drive's light to sync with the demo's music.

the products of those years all disappeared into total obscurity; thrown into the bin by my parents sometime in the mid-90s, several years after I moved out, and there's no sign online. :(

I spent most of my teenage years hacking out cracks and demos as Mantis, on the fringes of the XS group (before it got big in the Amiga scene iirc). If you ask me, they were fantastic; my favourite trick was getting the floppy drive's light to sync with the demo's music.

the products of those years all disappeared into total obscurity; thrown into the bin by my parents sometime in the mid-90s, several years after I moved out, and there's no sign online. :(

I have to thank you crackers for offering all sorts of video gaming fun in my youth via easily damaged hand-labeled floppy discs.

Sometimes in my sleep, I murmur;

" LOAD'*',8,1".

I once spent a day programming my trusty friend to make a snare sound and then a cannon. Go figure, they sounded the same.
The crowning achievement was securing a performance of Tom Dooley.
After that I decided not to continue programming because, it took too long and I thought my eyes were about to pop out of my head.

Oddly enough , I too enjoy the sound collecting world but, I was always more into music than anything else. Hey, when you are fed a steady diet of Vivaldi, Three Dog Night, Sex Pistols, Art of Noise, SugarHill Gang and ELO; one becomes adventurous.

I could have stopped when I found a decent copy of "Free to be You and Me" but, I did'nt.

Wow! C64 was my first computer.. I programmed a few games in the 6th grade, I had some kind of tape recorder. I started reading all kinds of those magazines and got really into it. Then one day my surge protector went out... unsure what next I told my mom I needed it fixed and that was the end of my computer days. Its still in the closet waiting to be fixed.. Im 33 now. I ended up doing graphics, then web, then scripting.. wow.. if only someone would of fixed that thing I'd really be on top of my game :-)

the good old days! I used to Call BBS's overseas for -0- day warez using codes also! 516-201-313 area codes had the most Elite BBs's. I also remember the whole phreaking/hacking/carding scene heheh. Dude, Q-Link! i used to spend hours on there getting my warez connections.
I relate to your story 100% (even though i wasnt fat) it was a whole new world for a kid! WAREZ,DEMOS,COPY PARTIES

Ahh, the memories. Actually, I had pretty good success with the 64, I published 3 games: Robot Wars, Hostage and Meteoroids, created the Lottoman Database software which allowed me to start my own company. Unfortantly that happened just as the 64 was fading into the sunset, so that didn't last very long.But my fondest memories on the 64 was bbs'ing and hacking. I remember using a really cool program called Phoneman. It inspired me to write my own hacking tool which I called Phonebuster. It had a war dialar and a password generator which would hack at a computer until it got in. It even called it back when it got disconnected.LOL! God.. its funny when I think back on that but if you were do that now-a-days.. I mean with caller-id now, you would be busted for sure. Yes, times were so much simpler back then and you could get away with a lot of stuff, but progress is progress and I'm glad we are where we are at today. They were good times though and I am greatful to Commodore for making a great puter.

I had a C64 but I was young at the time. I just played video games but I had to start them myself my parents wouldn't and couldn't help me. I think my brother told me how. I dare say I want to get a commadore 64 again. I don't think I've ever hacked though. I don't remember how old I was at the time but I'm 18 now.

God, I remember the days. Me and a guy named mike did two semi lame demos under the name ECG. I was devastated when Commodore bit the shit. I still have all of the old software and 4 64's, 2 v-20's, 2 Amiga 500's, and an Amiga 3000. Damn, those were the days, slow BB downloads and cracked warez.

Remember them days ?? im 34 now and still living them hehe.. I have a wife & 2 kids but I still find time to close the door on my den and fire up my trusty 64. I still code on it, spending time ripping sids from intros..

If anyone is interested i have a Commodore 64 BBS up and running 24/7. You can telnet with a program terminal software called Cgterm which can be easily googled and downloaded and telnet to 64VintageRemixBBS.dyndns.org

Ahh.. Those were the days.. The Commodore 64, believe it or not, is still going quite strong.. I too grew up a computer "geek", giving away many days of perfect sunshine for the 4 walls that encased my passion for my Commodore 64.. I did everything back then.. I was a hacker, cracker, phreaker, programmer (Deathlok Modded C*Base, anyone?), musician, SysOp of Blurred Reality, among many other things.. Through the course of time, I've tried to keep ties with many of my friends from that era.. It's a difficult task to track some people down, but, when you do, with today's internet, it's much easier to keep in touch..

I still have 12 Commodore 64s (6 working, 6 for parts), and will occasionally use one to reminisce about the past.. I still write music from time to time on it, too.. Anyone can use samples on the PC to make music.. To actually program the voices yourself and put everything together?? That takes REAL talent.. ;)

Just because we grow older doesn't mean we have to grow apart from the things we enjoy.. Heck.. I met my wife of 14 years through the old Q-Link system you mentioned above.. That was one of the other great things about the Commodore 64.. Whether you were on Q-Link or a BBS, you could have much more personal interactions with other people.. You truly got to know them for who they were because you were able to talk to the same people on a daily/nightly basis.. Q-Link was a nice escape from the "ELITE" scene that I spent so much time dealing with.. It allowed me to drop the hacker-stuff for a while and just chill out, even though I was hacking my accounts on Q-Link too.. LOL!! 6+ years and I never paid a penny.. What's funny is, even though I was a known hacker, I was still asked to come work for them at one point in time.. Sheesh..

Man I think you told the story of most of us. I was also an artist of many demos and bbs start screens. I remember being up all night drawing with a Atari 2600 joystick plugged into the commodore 64. I also ran a 0 day bbs - and imported from Europe - the art was super fun - I also called it quits in 1990. As fate had it - I'm now in my mid-30's and have been making video games since 1994. Funny how things work out - thanks for telling the story of many of us. I suddenly don't feel quite alone anymore.

I ran Hackers Exchange and The Laboratory on a c64 for years. I had someone setup Hackers Exchange ][ at some point but then everything died off. Mostly after Operation Sundevil I got out of everything, but I always had notebooks full of codes/etc. Remember code lines? A voice mail system that would be compromised and used to give out codez/cardz? It definitly isn't the same anymore. It won't EVER be like that again, unfortunately. Isn't it amazing how far it's all come in such a short time though?